Jungle City

Board

“When I left my home, my people, my continent, I wasn’t prepared for the wonders and terrors I was about to see. But that’s what I came for, as an insatiable thirst for adventure burns in my chest…” – Relvyne the Explorer

Please let me know in the comment section, if you used this board for an adventure and what it was!

Acknowledgement

This new, revised version 2.0 of my board, came to be thanks to N3rdC3ntral (https://talestavern.com/userprofile/929/), who was so kind to review version 1.0 on his Twitch-channel:  https://www.twitch.tv/n3rdc3ntral, when I asked him for feedback. I took his advise to heart and added further underground structures, made the interior of the houses more individual and fixed several minor issues or at least tweaked them here and there. I am afraid there is no simple way to improve the camera handling in the more clausthrophobic parts below the temples at the moment though (which I admit is a real issue with this kind of architecture).

Adventures in the jungle city

This bustling jungle city could be the setting for a great variety of adventure plots. Here’s just a few ideas:

• Helping a lokal high-priest to solve a conflict where a radical splinter group wishes to return to “the old ways”: the sacrifice of intelligent creatures.
• Similary a fanatic cult or simply some greedy opportunists wish to awaken a bloodthirsty demigod for their own gain.
• Escorting a noble to the city, whilst learning he/she is intended to become a sacrifice him-/herself, because of an emergency: a cruel, powerful entity needs too be appeased, or else the population will starve… will the heroes see the sacrifice done? Or will they take on a force-of-nature-level elder horror? Maybe there’s another way?
• A good old treasure hunt: Obtaining riches or an ancient artifact from one of the tombs or caves rumured to be below the well guarded temple pyramids?
• The heroes were captured by a group of yuan ti and now have to escape from the holding cages deep under the temple.
• …

The Map

The given map does not show the entire city, but a section of it. Imagine more domestic buildings and smaller shrines in the vicinity, lot’s of fields of grain and vegetables appropriate for the climate and a lot more jungle of course.

This board has

• a steep temple pyramid, which is one more on the “light” side, including an inside stair case, the tomb of its builder, a crystal cave and a side entrance by a lake
• another temple pyramid which is pretty grim; it also contains the tomb of the builder; then there is the sacrifical chamber of blood and even deeper below a sacrifical cenote with a natural underwater tunnel connecting to a cave by the river
• houses and street shops,
• patches of jungle (home do cuddly animals)
• a small lake
• a stretch of river
• secret passages
• an imprisoned, immortal [?] demigod

The intended water level is to just barely cover the golden middle of the big compas rose (you can’t miss it).

Creator’s note

Creating this map was a labour of love. It all started with a single, intriguing new piece amongst the available tiles, which prompted me to build a pyramid. I just went with it from there, with no specific adventure, story or plot in mind. I took some architectural inspiration from precolumbian, mesoamerican cultures, but didn’t try to emulate or depict a specific one. There is no historical accuracy here at all. It is a pure fantasy map, that plays with popular tropes of pulp fiction. Please keep that in mind.